The I AM
By Lillian Howard
Imagine for a moment that you have only ever seen in black and white - now imagine that someone tries to explain color to you. Color has no feel, no smell, no shape. They can define it for you - different wave lengths of light bouncing off of objects and into your eyes - but how could they truly describe it to you without a frame of reference?
"And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations." Exodus 3:13-15
The children of Israel have lived in Egypt for years. Multiple generations have been born there, have known nowhere else. The Egyptian gods, as well as many other mythologies, were known by their frame of reference. The greatest gods ruled over the greatest things: the sun and the Nile, life and death, storms and the ocean. All the things of great power or significance, all the things difficult to explain. And every smaller thing seemed to have a small god over it, defined by it.
This is some of what the Israelites have known for many years. So Moses asks God, what's Your frame of reference? God gives two answers to that question. The first, in verse 14, is, I have none.
I AM that I AM. I exist because I exist. I am Who I am. I am Myself because I am Myself. I have no frame of reference.
"And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." Exodus 3:14
In two sentences, God makes Himself unbearably large - He steps back, outside the realm of our world, and says, you can't understand Me like that. I'm much beyond all that.
And then, in the very next verse, the next sentence, He steps down from His place in the unquantifiable. He steps down among us, not instead, but as well. He says, know Me instead by this. I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. I am the God Who loved them, and Who they loved. This is My frame of reference. This is how you can know Me.
In one answer, He steps back, out of time and space, to say I Exist, without any needs or any limits, as I AM and unchanging. In the second answer, He steps back among us, into a context we can understand - and it is only after this second answer that He says, This is My Name.